


Awakening of a [L]ost Soul

by AikaKyomi



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Just Reader meeting my two favorite androids, Kidding I love Devola and Popola more, More of a meeting type of thing, This is not really romance, angst a little bit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 13:44:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14833379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AikaKyomi/pseuds/AikaKyomi
Summary: The world is in utter chaos, and mankind is on the brink of destruction. Machine and androids, fighting for masters they have yet to see, and yet the war seems to have no end.Until one day, a girl took a breath. The air entered her lungs, warm and cold at the same time. And ultimately,  it meant one thing.She was still alive.





	Awakening of a [L]ost Soul

[First person P.O.V.]

The warm air slowly entering my throat was the first thing to make me aware of my consciousness, to which I was hurried to quickly inhale another breath. I felt it scraping my lungs, scorching the surface, yet the pain was so little compared to the deliverance of breathing.

My body, my skin, my limbs, everything felt frozen in place and recovered by layers upon layers of solid ice, as if I had been struck into a freezing block. I tried to move a finger, in vain. Even my eyelids refused to cooperate upon my own will, remaining immobile, leaving me nothing but an aching respiratory system. And even conscious, my brain was tangled in a fuzzy waddling that prevented it to align thoughts completely.

I let out a scream, yet it never reached my ears: it only resounded and bounced in my head.

I suddenly heard a rowdy creaking, and before I could analyze its provenance I felt my body being propelled forward under the solid grasp of gravity, hitting the ground violently with a loud thud. I was hit with agonizing waves of pain traveling through me, yet the shock hurried me to open my eyes. But as I turned around to lay down on my back, the only sight I had was a blurry mixture of darkness with pieces of grey and ominous, flashing red lights.

I sensed myself laying down on the cold, wet surface upon which the ice rapidly melted. And although I was freezing, the heated breeze around me brought little pieces of emotions I couldn't quite grasp. Comfort, maybe. I had yet to put a finger on a word. 

In the absolute silence, my mind started to fill in the void with tons of question marks. Where was I? What day was it? Where was everyone? Why was I frozen in the first place?

My train of thoughts was suddenly interrupted by a boisterous beeping, along with a robotic voice. "Warning." it was low pitched, almost threatening. "Critical Error. Zero lifeforms detected. Power source failure."

A two seconds break, then it restarted: the exact same message, with the same voice and tone. "What the hell..." the words formed themselves in my head out of confusion, but they couldn't evade my lips.

As the warnings repeated itself over and over, the images before me were starting to get clearer. There were lines upon lines of small, grey cubicles piled over one another through the walls and the ceiling, which's interior was filled with darkness. The only open one was right over me, emitting a pale blue light from inside. I figured it was mine, where I had fallen from.

How was it mine from the beginning? How did I even end up in there? I had no idea. But were the other ones empty? Were there other human beings in them, waiting to wake up? That was a far more answerable question as of now.

Despite barely being able to adjust two words, I decided to act rationally and find it out by myself. Trying to gain balance despite the floor being recovered with water, I put down my hands on the ground and pushed myself up, slowly since my limbs still felt the pressure of ice against them. When I finally managed to lay down both feet on the ground, I simply stood up, unmoving. I took a deep breath, then stepped forward, and my lack of balance sent me falling back down.

"Damn." I muttered to myself. For the first time, I was able to hear it. I could finally talk, even though my voice was weak and raspy.

After a few attempts, I finally managed to stand and walk, even if it was at a very low pace. My vision was finally coming back to me, and the icy grasp on my skin was sluggishly melting away. I started to feel better, but only physically. Inside my mind, the anxiety and distress were overwhelming, drowning me under the threat of terror and loneliness.

The scariest thing about this whole situation was that as much as I thought, dug into my brain, there was absolutely no memory of how I ended up here. The last thing I remembered was foggy, almost like a dream: a conversation with few scientists, which were only distinguished as that by my mind thanks to their lab coats: their faces were blurred and their identity remained a mystery.

Were they responsible for my presence in here? The environment, dark yet slowly appearing to me thanks to my eyes getting used to the obscurity, was probably a clue leading to that hypothesis. As for why, mystery as well.

Yet, as I continued to think, the robotic words echoed, echoed, and continued to do so. The words, although beginning to carve themselves into my brain, appeared to hold some kind of weight to them now that I could think properly.

"Zero lifeforms detected"

I froze. Wait, this couldn't mean what I thought it meant. I was alive, was I? Walking, breathing... This line must have another meaning if so.

My breathing began to accelerate, as the sound of my beating heart echoed throughout my ears. I finally started to considerate the possible truth. What if I was really alone?

No, of course not. There were other cubicles, after all. If I had exited one, this must mean there were other human beings throughout the remaining ones.

I walked, unsteady, towards the closest wall. My eyes were making out the glass cover of one of the cells, before I could finally feel it with my hands. The surface was freezing, so much as its touch didn't feel like glass on my fingers.

It felt like a rock. Cold and dead.

Groaning, I pushed myself up on my feet so I could see inside the cubicle properly despite the absence of lighting. I blinked a few times, unable to see anything.

Yet the sight came. A human being, eyes closed, ice covering its body. "Why is it still sleeping?" you mumbled, hastily walking to the next box. And the next one. And the other three, being greeted by the same sight: a lifeless, frozen human body.

"Zero lifeforms detected". The voice repeated absentmindedly again and again.

"No, no, no." I tripped on my own legs, falling to the ground loudly with a thud. "No, please wake up."

"Zero lifeforms detected". It echoed louder.

"Somebody!" I started to yell, scorching my own lungs and throat. But I didn't care. My body barely felt alive to me anyway. "Anybody! Wake up for fuck's sake!"

The robotic speech restarted. Restarted. Restarted again. Engraving the words weighing the truth within me. How was this even possible? 

I curled into a ball on the cold floor, tears flooding my sight. I felt a dark, empty void shifting through me. And shame. How could I have wakened up when everyone else had not? I did not deserve all this. I merely should've died, like the others. "Please..." I sobbed, pleading to anyone, anything who'd listen. "Don't leave me. Don't leave me alone."

Yet deep down, I knew no one could ever hear me again. Everyone was dead.

☀︎☀︎☀︎☀︎☀︎

[Third person P.O.V.]

The recent electronic waves that had shaken the desert region near the city ruins took everyone by surprise, especially YoRHa, who had noticed some irregularities in the area since the last few years. A couple of waves lasting a couple of seconds to an hour or two, before disappearing for months. But this time, it was something else: the signal was strong and consistent, and not as vague as it used to be: the organization was finally able to pinpoint its exact location.

A few scans had been done from space, revealing a large metallic structure under the sand. Even though the scans weren't the most accurate form to establish an analysis of the situation, it was helpful enough to at least dig up the structure and find out what was inside of it.

After all the digging work was done and the complex was opened from the outside, two androids near the area were called to investigate the matter due to their ranged proximity from the operation. Those were Combat model 2B and Scanner model 9S.

As the doors were overcast under the sand, a big hole had been pierced through its ceiling to access the inside. Everything was made of a strong yet rusty metal that started to lose its lustrous silvery appearance to a dark brown, although it was hard to see as it was completely dark inside, as if devoid of any functioning system. Weird, as it had sent signals before, so it couldn't be completely dead.

"What do you think this is all about, 2B?" one android asked, his voice filled with genuine curiosity.   
"No idea." the other replied firmly, seemingly closing the way to any further dialogue.

She brought her hand up to the metallic box flying near her, better known as her Pod, or Pod 042 of its full name, to activate its flashlight, yet the perfectly circular ray of light illuminated merely a few feet before her. She sighed loudly, jumping down the hole of the structure while her friend, although reticent, dove down as well. 

The scan done by Pod 042 as they walked around the abandoned building was unsettling: it was absolutely gigantic. Almost as big as the abandoned factory, only this time, it was underground. The walls, the ground, the ceilings, everything was made of rusty metal that, weirdly enough, had been oddly well contained. "I sure wonder what humans had to put in here." 9S thought out loud, voicing out what they were both thinking. Yet 2B only nodded to herself, unable to answer the slightest. Humans were weird creatures, after all. They fought for them, yet knew so little about them.

"Any machine lifeforms holed up in here?" 2B asked her Pod, yet 9S, who was ahead of her, responded instead.  
"I don't pick up any machine core signals. I think we're the first ones in he-"

He stopped, both his words and his feet. 2B curbed her course as well, walking up to the other android. "What is it?" she asked him in confusion. He was usually so talkative, so seeing him pause was unsettling.

"I..." he stuttered, as if unable to put words on his thoughts. "I'm picking up a signal, but it's faint. It's alive, it seems. It's not a machine."  
"It must be a small animal, or-"  
"2B, this is a signal I have never seen before. Nothing in the database corresponds to it. This is... I don't know what it is."  
2B nodded, yet she was clueless on what to do. If they were on the brink of making a life-changing discovery, she wanted them to be the ones to do it. "Let's hurry then." she declared firmly. "Pod 042, make us a path towards the designated signal."  
"Affirmative." the Pod replied, and showed them the trail to reach their destination.

They eventually managed to go deeper and deeper under the building, until they came to realize they were now a mile under the surface. Yet the mixture of hellishly long hallways, which most of them were partially destroyed or collapsed, didn't make it easy to reach the bottom of it. And even if androids couldn't technically feel fatigue, boredom was starting to invade their minds.

"This better be worth it." 9S grumbled to himself, without earning a response from 2B. Yet she felt the same thing: this all seemed to be leading nowhere,  even if the trail drawn by Pod 042 was still ongoing. 

It had been hours when they finally reached an immense door, covered by a yellow sign upon which words in old human language were written. Luckily, they had been taught to understand it. 

"Cryogenic Laboratory." 9S read the words. "Permission up to level 4 required to enter." he paused. "This is our destination? What's cryogenic anyway?"  
"I guess we'll find out." 2B declared firmly. "Pod, blow up to the door."  
"Negative," it responded. "The facility is highly unstable. Destroying some of its components might cause a collapse of the whole structure."  
"Hack it then."  
"Affirmative."

Since the technology was old, thus hard to decipher, it took a few minutes to finally get a hold of the door. But once it was opened, they were welcomed by a frightening sight: a gigantic room constructed like a pentagon, with two faces posing as walls and two others shaping the ceiling, full of sealed off cubicles which's interior was covered in darkness. The last side was the floor, composed of achromatic ceramic that remained cold to the touch. 

Through the empty silence of the place, faint sounds could be heard coming from its end, so far almost as if they'd imagined it. Yet Pod 042 was formal: the signal was coming from here. 

"Still no idea what this is?" 2B asked 9S once again, but he replied by shaking his head negatively.  
"Not at all." he replied. "As weird as it sounds, I'm clueless."

Yet, unknowingly to them, as they conversed, the noises had stopped. They both only realized this afterward, when the silence was this time, truly hollow.

"Who is this?" it was a voice. Weak, yet soft, thorn as if tears were hanging on the words. The two androids looked at each other in suspicion. It spoke in old language, the former language of humans. No other androids than YoRHa's had gone through the trouble of learning it. "Are you alive?" it asked.

Silently, 9S carried out another scan to verify if the location of the signal and the mysterious voice were the same. And soon enough, he realized. They were. 

"Oh god, I'm going crazy." the voice cried out, even weaker this time as if it talked to itself.   
"Identify yourself!" 9S shouted, his voice echoing loudly through the air of the empty room.   
It didn't respond. Only soft sobs resounded back to them. "Stop." it pleaded. "Stop tormenting me. Let me go."

9S turned to 2B, troubled by this whole turn of events. "You saw the results," he whispered to her, "this is the signal I was picking up. What do we do now?"  
"Let's check it out." she nodded. "I don't think we're in danger, but stay focused nonetheless."  
"This is a human factory after all." he paused briefly, as if he was unable to believe his own words. "2B, do you think it could be..."

"Unlikely." she cut him. "This is probably just a weirdly evolved machine lifeform. Be wary."

He didn't answer back. Of course, she was right. What else could it be? Humans were on the moon for so long, how in the hell could there be any left on Earth. It obviously didn't make sense: it was just him having all sorts of crazy ideas.

Through the dark room, they proceeded with caution as the sobbing continued, almost ignoring their presence. They walked up to it, their footsteps light, until they finally reached up to it.

It was a young girl, seemingly human like every android and some particular machine lifeforms they had encountered lately. She was curled up on the ceramic floor, eyes forcefully closed like she refused to open them, and wet strands of her (h/c) hair laying on against the ground. Her clothing consisted of a white tunic, made of unknown material, to cover her body and her thighs. Yet again, as they stood right next to her, she refused to move, even if the tears going down her cheeks clearly showed that she was not dead.

"Pod." 9S called. "Requesting scan."  
"Affirmative."

The Pod flew over the girl, but the words spoke right next to made her jump quickly, sitting up as the two androids, startled, raised their weapons against her. But weirdly enough, as she gazed up at them, a sigh of relief escaped her thin lips, and her eyes lightened up despite the red circles around them caused by the tears.

"I'm not alone..." she mumbled to herself. "Did you guys wake up here too?"

She put up her hands against the ground as she tried to stand up, but ultimately failed and fell back down on her back. 9S frowned as he looked at his partner. If it was indeed a machine lifeform, it surely wasn't as threatening as Adam and Eve were when they first discovered them. He brought his gaze back at the girl, and in pity, lowered his hand towards her. 

2B tried to stop him, her sword still firmly held in her hands, saying it was too dangerous, but inside of him, he knew this thing was not a threat to him. He couldn't figure out how he knew that, it was merely a feeling he had. The girl looked up into his eyes in disbelief, and weakly extended her arm to reach out to his hand. As she closed her fingers into his, he felt the coldness of her skin through his glove. It was glacial, almost like ice. 

As she slowly managed to stand her on her feet, barely standing straight, 9S saw her open and close her mouth frenetically, almost as if she didn't know what to say. His Pod, Pod 153, spoke in her place. "Scan completed," it replied. "Alert. Human lifeform detected."

"What?" he exclaimed, looking at his Pod in incredulity. "Human? That can't be right. Pod, are you sure?"  
"Affirmative."

He gazed at 2B, who was in complete awe as well: the grip of her hand around her sword was hesitant, although it remained focused on the girl. After a few seconds of looking around, she finally noticed the weapon aimed at her face and took a step back. "Wait," she stuttered, "are you here to kill me?" Tears started to fill the corner of her eyes. "Please, I've done nothing wrong..."

"2B, lower your weapon." 9S stated, bringing up a hand as a sign. "You're scaring her."  
"This can't be real." she stated harshly, gritting her teeth. "All the humans are on the moon. This must be another trick of the machines."

"All the humans are where?" the young girl asked, pausing between each of her words like she couldn't believe she was saying those. "Where am I then? Who are you?"  
"I will contact the Commander." the female android declared, shooting a brief gaze at the 'human', who still glanced at her in pleading, before turning to 9S. "You keep an eye on her." 

His partner nodded, and she turned on her heels to walk a bit further, where she would get a better signal to contact command. Yet now, he was stuck alone with the girl, whose eyes were now locked with the ground. She was shivering, yet he couldn't know if it was the cold or fear. He couldn't believe it himself: a human on Earth? This was way too crazy to believe it, and if anyone would have told him this story, he would've scoffed, thinking it was ridiculous. Yet now, there was a human right in front of him. A real one, not just a disembodied voice like the leader of the Council of Humanity, whose voice he always thought was scary. No, the voice of this girl, although it was weak, was almost like a melody to his ears. He didn't quite know why, but he loved it.

"What's going on..." he saw her mutter to herself, and although he had so many questions to ask her, he tried to be polite instead, as she already seemed incredibly distressed.  
"I'm 9S." he told her slowly. He hadn't spoken in old language in a long time.  
"9...S?." she frowned in confusion. "How do you spell that?"  
He was taken aback slightly. No one had ever asked him about the pronunciation of his name. "Well, the number 9, and the letter S. But my friends call me Nines."  
"That's your name? Geez, your parents didn't love you much."  
"I don't have uh... parents. I guess this is a concept exclusive to humans."

The girl took a breath, laying her forehead against her head as if she was thinking. "Human this, human that..." she said, the confusion infused in each of her words. "If you aren't humans, what are you then?"  
"Me and 2B are androids, made to protect mankind." he stopped briefly, noticing her widened eyes. It was probably as much as a big shock to her than it was for them to learn her human nature. "All the remaining humans are hidden on the moon, so finding you here is something we never would've expected."  
"Android? On... the moon?" she paused, looking at him in disbelief. "What the hell, can't you tell me the truth?"  
"That's... what I'm doing."  
"This sounds like a great sci-fi scenario and all, but this is impossible." she stated, her eyes expressing a new emotion. They were colder, almost harsh out of anger. "What of White Chlorination Syndrome? Did they find a cure?"  
"White Chlorination... what?" 

9S didn't quite know what to reply to something he did not understand. What was she talking about? Maybe his human studies weren't truly perfected, after all...

The girl froze. "Wait, if you don't know about it... Did they eradicate it? What year is this?"  
"The year is 11945 AD." Pod 153 replied, as 9S didn't know the answer himself. The exact one, that is. It's not like he had been alive long enough to know it anyway.

She looked at the Pod for a brief second, troubled by its appearance, before the weight of the answer truly reached to her. Her face darkened, frightened: she was suffering, but not physically. This was hard for 9S to comprehend: YoRHa androids weren't allowed to feel emotions, after all, therefore he had no idea how to interpret them. Emotions were singular to humans, although he had seen machines try to imitate them.

The girl stepped back, and fell down once again. He hurried his hand next to her, ready to help her back up, but she ignored him. Her gaze was empty, looking at the void. Fixated on something that did not exist. "This..." she mumbled. "This can't be... Everyone..." her eyes were filled with tears once again, but she could not cry. She was unable too, as if the shock was too brutal to accept. "I'm the only one left."  
"But the other cubicles around," 9S stated, crouching down right next to her, "are there other hu-"  
"They're dead." she adamantly declared. "All of them. There was this alarm stating that the power system has failed. And-and for some reason, I'm-"

She could not finish: she burst into tears, her face into hands, and 9S didn't know how to react. He simply stood there, looking at her in confusion. Having to learn that your whole world has disappeared, spiraling with people that aren't your own while everyone you knew is dead... Just the thought of having his memory disappear, and it made him shiver with fear. He couldn't possibly imagine what she was feeling as of now. 

He didn't know a thing about comforting others, especially not how humans did it. Yet he didn't know quite why, but he sat down next to her, putting an arm on her shoulder. It was more of an instinct than anything, he realized as he started to ponder his action but before he could remove his arm she had leaned against it, lying down her head on the side of his body. He almost swore her sobbing had lowered in volume.

From the corner of his eyes, he saw 2B, in the middle of a conversation with the Commander, looking him up. He didn't quite know if she was angry or simply confused, but the absence of direct visual contact because of the blindfolds prevented him to fully understand what she would tell him. 

He turned back his head towards the girl. "Are you alright?" he asked her, to which she did not answer. Yet she nodded weakly, slightly pushing herself away from his embrace. Her head was turned away gazing at the ground, but she slowly turned her eyes towards him.   
"Thank you." she whispered, the ghost of smile floating over her lips briefly. He was clueless about why she was thanking him, yet he didn't make any comment regarding it and simply nodded, trying to smile as well.  
"I forgot to ask, but..." he started, and the glance of the girl came back on him. "I don't know your name."  
"(Y/n)." she stated softly. "My name is (Y/n)."

He wanted to ask so many things to her. He was a Scanner model: he was made to be curious minded, after all. This was in his nature, yet he felt as if this was not the time to do it. They had a few hours ahead of them to get out of the facility anyway: he'd get a chance to talk to her about it then, once she'd be calmer. 

"The world now..." (Y/n) mumbled. "How is it if there are no humans left?"  
"Well, androids and machine lifeforms are battling to reclaim the Earth. We are fighting for the humans on the Moon, and they fight for the aliens."  
"Aliens now, you said?" she frowned to herself. "This escalated quickly..."  
He chuckled slightly, to which she smiled faintly at him. Somehow, he felt proud of it, making her smile. "Maybe you could go there, on the Moon." he declared. "I'm not sure how we'd do that, but surely there's a way."  
"Yes, hopefully." she replied. "I'd like that."  
"I'll make sure to ask the Commander for you."  
"One more thing." she took a brief pause. "Why do you two wear blindfolds?"  
"They're visors. It helps us collect data and receive transmissions, for example."  
"Wow, that's amazing..."

Her face was already speaking in another question mark when 2B returned from her call, approaching 9S and (Y/n). The human immediately stopped talking, feeling a lot less comfortable around the female android than she did around 9S. "The Commander instructed us to immediately take her out of here and escort her to the Resistance Camp." she declared, barely looking at the girl. "The flight units are not constructed for humans, so it's the safest we can do for now. "

"Good." her partner replied, shooting a quick glance at (Y/n). "Let's get going." he announced, bringing up her eyes that were locked on the ground towards him. He offered him his hand once again as he stood up, and this time, she gladly accepted it. 

Poor girl. All the chaos and destruction at the surface, he almost felt bad for her to have to notice it all. He just hoped it would be resolved quickly, so she could go to the Moon and reunite with her fellow humans. How lucky she'd be however, being able to see the Council of Humanity, when he had been working for them for so long without hearing anything else but a voice. 

Yet this marked as an entirely new step for them, for YoRHa: a living, breathing human would be able to give them so much knowledge about the old world, which they lacked for so long. 

He looked at her once more, as she took a step a few steps to follow 2B, who ordered her to follow closely behind. And unknowingly, he softly smiled to himself. 

**Author's Note:**

> I've been asked by many (including my best friend who knows nothing about NieR lmao) to do a sequel to this. I've just started to work on it, so hopefully it's coming up soon!


End file.
